Introducing a new role in Nursing into AUBMC : the Clinical Nurse Leader

Abstract

Nowadays, the health care system is becoming more and more complex and the needs to use evidenced-based practices and clinical improvements are rising. It is hard to initiate and maintain a change in nursing practice at the unit level for the purpose of achieving the best quality of care and improving patient outcomes; for that reason, the role of the Clinical Nurse Leader was created to tackle microsystem level problems and concerns that necessitate advanced clinical knowledge and leadership.This new role showed success in ensuring continuity of care for patients with complex care needs and in improving patient outcomes and satisfaction by sharing the knowledge, expertise and skills to patients and staff, and at the same time got a lot of critique.Different countries in the US have implemented the Clinical Nurse Leader. This paper proposes the implementation of the Clinical Nurse Leader role at the American University of Beirut (AUBMC) studying the cost-effectiveness of this role on the quality of care and nurses’ satisfaction.